Anna kept forgetting about her face. “Where’s he?” Anna’s own tone was crippled. She asked the question quickly and from an odd angle of inflection.
“Scotland. Comes back next week.” Glenn looked her over. Her shoulders were hunched and the hand that held her phone trembled. Glenn’s initial misgiving softened into concern for the strange woman in front of him. “Ma’am, is there something I can do for you? Are you okay, ma’am?”
Anna shook her head gently and chuckled. This is pretty funny. So many failsafes, all of them failing. No, there was nothing he could do.
“Sorry?” The laugh was up for interpretation.
“Nothing. I apologize for disturbing you.” Anna stilted her speech to mask her disappointment, but that was all she had to say. Glenn called to her as she walked out the door, but Anna waved him off and kept walking. Outside the whiskey shop, Anna tightened the belt of her coat and wrung her hands. Oh well. Oh well.
It was colder than it had been before she went inside and yet she’d been in the shop for only a minute. The temperature was shifting as quickly as her mood. She laughed again. There was no other way to respond. Blackly funny, how her day was unfolding. How every avenue of escape was bricked up. How all of her choices were already ticked off an unseen list. Every option was bleak. Now what? She strained the ear of her heart to hear the answer. Nothing called back. Anna attempted to console herself. There, there, she coddled. We’ll figure this out. We will. We will! In plural, she felt comfort. Make it a game, Anna. Play along with this series of unfortunate coincidences. Then again, in chorus, she reassured her selves: There, there. Anna sighed and headed south toward Stadelhofen.
Anna walked to Stadelhofen and then up the hill behind the train station and crossed through the small park behind the Kantonsschule and followed the s-curve of the street and turned left onto Promenadengasse and continued walking until she reached St. Andrew’s Church, Zürich’s English-speaking Anglican congregation. She’d been to this church before, three or four times in the early months of living in Switzerland when she was most lonely for company. But then Victor was born, and caring for an infant superseded her self-indulgent dolors. After that she met Edith and for a while hers was friendship enough. Anna circled the building until she came to the entrance. Why not? She’d walked in this direction without a conscious plan. But in she went. Anna wandered through the sanctuary and into the fellowship hall and down a corridor until she found an office she assumed belonged to the priest. The door was drawn but not closed. Anna pushed it open; she didn’t bother to knock.
Medieval Christianity taught that there were eight, not seven, deadly sins. The eighth sin was despair, and it was the only sin that could not be forgiven. For to despair is to deny the ultimate power and universal reign of God. Despair is complete disbelief, indulgent hopelessness, the repudiation of God’s wisdom, his benevolence, his control. Total depravity, Anna thought. Today’s pain has always been mine. It’s intended just for me.
“I think I need help,” Anna said. Help. It was the first time she’d said the word aloud that day. It didn’t feel as good as she’d hoped and she wanted to retract it as soon as she said it.
The priest looked up from his desk with a start. “Oh!” He’d been typing an email and hadn’t heard her come in. He scanned her face but couldn’t place her as a congregant. He stood and held out his hand. Anna shook it limply. He gestured to an empty chair on the other side of his desk. He didn’t blink at her bruises.
The priest was a short, very round older man with a tan face, a salt-and-pepper beard, and a Welsh accent. “Yes, of course. Let’s talk.” He smiled on her like a grandfather, though he couldn’t have been more than fifteen years her senior. As in the whiskey shop, Anna hadn’t planned what she was going to say. Each of the day’s conversations had swerved in different directions. I need to confess. I need him to take my confession. She wanted to tell her story, her whole story, to someone. Bruno wouldn’t hear it that morning. No one had ever heard it. I’ll tell the truth and he’ll absolve me. Anna took a hard breath and exhaled slowly, finding her courage. I’ll tell the truth. And all shall be well.
But when she opened her mouth to speak, what tumbled out was a question.
“Do you believe in predestination?” They weren’t the words she intended, but they weren’t unfamiliar. She carried this uncertainty wherever she went.
“Do I? Or does the church?”
“You.” She wanted to talk with a person.